FranklyChemistry Roadmap
75 Questions. One Clear Goal.
Chemistry makes much more sense when you stop simply learning facts and start asking the right questions.
FranklyChemistry is being built around 75 chemistry questions that students ask — or should realise they need to ask.
Each question becomes a focused chemistry lesson designed to explain the underlying ideas clearly, develop understanding and, where appropriate, show how that understanding translates into better examination answers.
Why Questions?
Learning chemistry can easily become a collection of equations, definitions and facts.
But understanding begins when we ask questions such as:
Why does that happen?
What evidence supports it?
How do we know?
What would happen if something changed?
How can I explain this rather than simply remember it?
Those are the questions FranklyChemistry is designed to explore.
Follow the FranklyChemistry Project
This is a growing collection.
New FranklyChemistry lessons are being produced regularly, with each one centred on a question worth understanding properly.
Many lessons are accompanied by a free classroom resource on TES, while further notes, resources and chemistry teaching can be found across
ACE Chemistry and ACE Academy.
The roadmap below shows where the project is now — and where it is going next.
More Than a YouTube Series
FranklyChemistry is part of a wider collection of chemistry teaching and resources.
FranklyChemistry
Focused video explanations built around important chemistry questions.
ACE Chemistry
A large collection of free chemistry resources developed over many years.
ACE Academy
Structured A-Level chemistry teaching for students who want to go further and develop a deeper command of the subject.
Keep Asking Why
Chemistry becomes far more interesting when the facts begin to connect and you understand why things happen.
That is the purpose of this project.
75 questions. 75 opportunities to understand chemistry better.
Keep asking why — because understanding is what chemistry is all about.
The FranklyChemistry Roadmap: FC-001 → FC-075
Explore the questions. Follow the series. Keep asking why.
FOUNDATIONS — What is matter actually made from?
FC-001 — Why Is Iron(III) More Acidic Than Iron(II)?
FC-002 — Why Is Copper(II) Sulfate Blue?
FC-003 — Why Do Transition Metal Solutions Have Different Colours?
FC-004 — How Do We Know Atoms Exist?
FC-005 — What Is Actually Inside an Atom?
FC-006 — Why Are Some Isotopes Stable?
FC-007 — How Does a Mass Spectrometer Separate Isotopes?
FC-008 — How Do We Know Electrons Have Different Energy Levels?,
FC-009 — How Do Electrons Decide Where to Go?
FC-010 —Why Does the Periodic Table Have This Shape?
BONDING — Why do atoms stick together?
FC-011 — Why Do Atoms Form Bonds?
FC-012 — What Really Happens When an Ionic Bond Forms?
FC-013 — What Really Happens When a Covalent Bond Forms?
FC-014 — Why Are Some Covalent Bonds Polar?
FC-015 — Why Do Molecules Have Particular Shapes?
FC-016 — Why Is Diamond Hard but Graphite Soft?
FC-017 — What Are Sigma and Pi Bonds?
FC-018 — Why Can Metals Conduct Electricity?
FC-019 — Why Is Diamond Hard but Graphite Soft?
FC-020 — Why Is Graphene Such an Extraordinary Material?
INTERMOLECULAR FORCES — If molecules are neutral, why do they attract one another?
FC-021 — What Holds Molecules Together?
FC-022 — What Really Causes London Dispersion Forces?
FC-023 — Why Does Molecular Polarity Matter?
FC-024 — What Makes Hydrogen Bonding Special?
FC-025 — Why Does Water Have Such Unusual Properties?
FC-026 — Why Do Some Substances Dissolve in Water and Others Do Not?
AMOUNTS — How can we count particles we cannot see?
FC-027 — Why Do Chemists Need the Mole?
FC-028 — What Does Avogadro’s Constant Actually Mean?
FC-029 — How Do We Turn a Chemical Equation into a Calculation?
FC-030 — Why Is Concentration Measured in mol dm⁻³?
FC-031 — How Do Titrations Tell Us How Much Substance Is Present?
FC-032 — How Do We Identify the Limiting Reactant?
FC-033 — Why Are Percentage Yield and Atom Economy Different?
ENERGETICS — Where does chemical energy come from?
FC-034 — Why Do Some Reactions Get Hot and Others Get Cold?
FC-035 — What Does Enthalpy Change Actually Mean?
FC-036 — Why Does Breaking Bonds Require Energy?
FC-037 — How Can Bond Enthalpies Predict an Enthalpy Change?
FC-038 — Why Does Hess’s Law Work?
FC-039 — What Does a Born–Haber Cycle Actually Tell Us?
FC-040 — Why Does Entropy Tend to Increase?
FC-041 — How Does Free Energy Tell Us Whether a Reaction Is Feasible?
KINETICS — Why are some reactions fast and others incredibly slow?
FC-042 — What Actually Has to Happen for Two Molecules to React?
FC-043 — What Is Activation Energy?
FC-044 — What Does the Maxwell–Boltzmann Distribution Really Tell Us?
FC-045 — Why Does Increasing Temperature Speed Up a Reaction So Much?
FC-046 — How Does Concentration Affect Reaction Rate?
FC-047 — How Does Concentration Affect Reaction Rate?
FC-048 — How Can Experiments Reveal the Order of a Reaction?
FC-049 — What Does the Rate-Determining Step Actually Mean?
FC-050 — How Does a Catalyst Make a Reaction Faster?
EQUILIBRIUM — Why do reactions sometimes refuse to finish?
FC-051 — What Is Dynamic Equilibrium?
FC-052 — Why Does Changing Concentration Move an Equilibrium?
FC-053 — Why Does Changing Pressure Move Some Equilibria?
FC-054 — Why Does Temperature Change the Equilibrium Position?
FC-055 — What Does the Equilibrium Constant Kc Actually Tell Us?
FC-056 — Why Doesn’t a Catalyst Change the Equilibrium Position?
ACIDS AND BASES — What does “acidic” really mean?
FC-057 — What Actually Is an Acid?
FC-058 — What Is the Difference Between a Strong Acid and a Concentrated Acid?
FC-059 — What Does pH Really Measure?
FC-060 — Why Do Weak Acids Only Partially Dissociate?
FC-061 — What Does Ka Tell Us About an Acid?
FC-062 — How Do Buffer Solutions Resist Changes in pH?
FC-063 — How Does an Acid–Base Indicator Actually Work?
REDOX AND ELECTROCHEMISTRY — Why do electrons move?
FC-064 — What Does Oxidation Really Mean?
FC-065 — Why Do Oxidation States Work?
FC-066 — How Do We Balance Difficult Redox Equations?
FC-067 — How Does an Electrochemical Cell Produce a Voltage?
FC-068 — What Does Electrode Potential Actually Measure?
FC-069 — How Can Electrode Potentials Predict Whether a Reaction Will Occur?
ORGANIC CHEMISTRY — Why does carbon produce so much chemistry?
FC-070 — Why Is Carbon Able to Form So Many Compounds?
FC-071 — Why Do Organic Reactions Follow Mechanisms?
FC-072 — What Do Curly Arrows Actually Mean?
FC-073 — What Makes a Molecule a Nucleophile or an Electrophile?
FC-074 — Why Do Alkenes Undergo Electrophilic Addition?
OPEN ROADMAP
FC-075
FC-076
FC-077
FC-078
FC-079
FC-080
Questions asked of FranklyChemistry mailto:fgs55@icloud.com
FC-Request-001 – Haramrit asks: “If changing the pressure shifts the position of equilibrium, why doesn’t it also change Kp?”
FC-Request-002 – Why Do We Use E/Z for Alkenes but Cis/Trans for Metal Complexes?
FC-Request-003